Having read 12 Years a Slave, I'd say the movie was extremely faithful to the book.
Finished it yesterday. I have to respectfully disagree.
Of course, that's subjective. About 20 years ago my girlfriend and I went to see The Interview with The Vampire. She was into those Ann Rice books in a big way, and through her I became moderately interested. At least interested enough to read some of them. Anyway, she was so excited when the movie came out. Afterward, I thought it was a reasonably good effort on the part of the directors and producers, but she thought that the effort failed. "They're so gay! They're not like that in the book!" What? I thought that they were gay vampires. It was obvious to me that they were, and so the decidedly effeminate Tom Cruise and prettyboy Brad Pitt were perfectly cast, and played the parts perfectly well. Well, anyway suffice it to say that in the end she and I had to agree to disagree.
I think that you and I may just have to agree to disagree on this movie. To wit:
As has been mentioned by Torie and by me, the characters in the movie were very flat. Bland. That was unfortunate, because in his diatribe, Northup described them well and interestingly, so it didn't have to be that way. There were many omissions. I understand the need to cut stuff out, otherwise you end up with movies that are far too long, like Titanic and Malcolm X. Both those could have been excellent films with a little editing, or had at least 30% of the footage been culled. Still, you can't omit so much that it interferes with character development.
The smallpox episode early on, for example, was critical to understanding Northup. (In fact, it is also critical to understanding the death of the Cincinnati freeman who died on board. He was not knived by a horny sailor. That was entirely false. He died from smallpox, and it was his death that foiled the planned escape by Northup and two others. Because escape was constantly on his mind, and because he mentioned in just about every chapter, it is an unforgivable omission.)
Speaking of the slaves on the boat, Clemens Ray was not the one met by his master at New Orleans, as shown in the movie. Rather it was Williams, and it wasn't his master.
The omission of Eliza's death was also unfortunate, because Solomon was a people person, and he wrote so much about her. Additionally, her slow decay after her son and daughter were sold away and separated from her was telling. It's an important part not only of this story but of so many others.
There were two fights with Tibeat, and it was only after the second that he was rented to Turner and others, and eventually sold to Epps. Also the swamps, the swimming, the snakes, the alligators were all missing (of course that followed the second episode with Tibeats). I'm astonished that this was left out because it is necessary to understand the captivity. Northup took great pains to explain all this.
Also, Epps gave him the violin--his wife insisted; she liked music--not Ford. They did emphasize the music well enough ("...we are a musical people..." as Northup said of his race) but many of the details were off.
Critically, Solomon talking to Ford and Tibeats on the bayou was not in character. He could not tell them he worked the champlain canal, hired a team, etc. That was central to his character development as well. Moreover, he never told Ford "You must understand that I was a free man..." Northup made it clear early own that he feared for his life if he divulged his secret to any planter or slave.
The sex scene? Really? Did they have to go there? Northup made absolutely no mention of pleasuring any female slaves or being otherwise unfaithful to his wife during his twelve years of bondage. That, too, is an important part of his character that the directors completely missed.
And Patsey wanting him to kill her?! No way. Not only wasn't that mentioned in his book, but at that time she was a survivor. Lithe, nimble, and reasonably intelligent. Sure, her lot was worse than most, but she never asked Solomon Northup ("Platt") to kill her. Of course, Mary Epps tried to bribe him to kill Patsey, but that's a different thing entirely.
Epps was also misrepresented. Oh, he was sadistic and a drunkard, but it was Eldert who used Luke 12:47 to justify his treatment of the slaves, not Epps. Also, Epps was physically misrepresented as well. The real Epps looked like a fatter, blonde version Karl Malden. The actor cast looked nothing like Northup's detailed description of Epps.
Speaking of physical descriptions, the actor who played Solomon was too heavy. Maybe Solomon was that heavy in 1841, but by 1853, after 12 years of 1000-calorie-per-day diet and physical exertion from sunup till sundown, he would not have been. Actors are often told to gain and then lose weight for roles (think: Tom Hanks in Survivor). A loss of about 40 pounds before filming of the final parts of the script would have been in order.
I could go on and on, but basically it does not seem to me that the film was faithful to Northup's narrative. Whether Northup's narrative was faithful to reality we'll never know, but we do know that in 1864, when that part of Louisiana was occupied by US troops, many soldiers and officers who had read Northup's narrative sought out Epps to ask him questions. In answer to the question, "Is that stuff he wrote true?" Epps replied, "Yeah, it's mostly true." In response to requests by soldiers to comment on Solomon Northup, Epps is quoted as saying, "he was an uncommonly smart n."
As an aside, I note that he spells plowed as "ploughed" so not all the modern American English spellings had evolved by the time he penned his intriguing and heartwrenching narrative.
I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree regarding the fidelity of the direction and script of this film.
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